


Voyages in Moiraillegiance (and fifteen shades of sadness)

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Team Scourge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-15
Updated: 2012-05-31
Packaged: 2017-11-05 10:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moirails are the height of happiness as long as they're alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unravel

**Author's Note:**

> Because no matter how hard I push I can't seem to write out the last chapter of Give me shadow, we have now some nice moirail shit coming on.  
> I hope you enjoy.  
> Hopefully I can push this shit on until the last chapter, and if I can't feel free to force me to.  
> Hopefully I can decimate your feels.  
> Please tell me any mistakes cause I haven't been able to proofread yet. Yup.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When you are away my heart comes undone - slowly unravels, like a ball of yarn._

Aradia is sitting, silent and graceful – her chin in her hand and her elbow on the windowsill. Her legs are crossed, her small sneaker enclosed feet shaking absentmindedly, her red striped socks falling down her shins. Her skirt hem is ragged from frivolous adventures; her long curls of black hair dishevelled and unkempt. Her face and clothing are smudged with dirt from an excavation attempted earlier today, her red lashed eyes staring thoughtfully out the window. Yes, Aradia was sitting. She was sitting in my hive and by all that is possibly holy in this shitty little planet I have no idea what to do. I must have accidently whined at this thought, because suddenly her grey-red eyes shot up to my face and a small smile played across her red lips. “Took you long enough!” She chided playfully, moving herself to face in my direction. I shrugged, feigning my usual confidence and walked out of the shadows, extending a glass of water out towards her. She took it with thanks and had a little sip. My palms were sweating. I could feel my heart trying to punch its way out of my ribs like it was a master in kung fucking fu. I swallowed the feeling and rolled my eyes. “Tho, what the hell are you doing here? Come to do thome more bithyclopth grubthitting?” I snickered, plopping down beside her on the long couch. She let out a small laugh, snarky and full of tinkling bells. “I think I’ve had enough to last me a life time in all honesty.”  
“Wouldn’t blame you.”  
“But I’d have to say grubsitting a large, disgruntled bicyclops is ten times easier than taking care of your sorry butt.”  
“Oh fuck you AA I’m a god amongtht men.”  
“You’re a stick among men! How about you try and eat the food I make you, then you won’t look like such a pole!”  
“At leatht I brush my hair.”  
“Don’t change the subject! Besides, You’re hairline’s been receding since you were 2 sweeps.”  
“It’th not retheeding, my forehead jutht keepth growing to make room for my conthtantly increathing brain cellth.”  
“Bullshit!”  
Her face splits into that shit eating grin she always gets whenever she’s fucking around with me, and I can’t even pretend to suppress the stupid laugh that comes pouring out of my throat, all snorts and wheezing and probably the epitome of _what a fucking loser_. She laughs along with me, mostly laughing at me, punching my bony shoulder. “Woah woah eathe up AA you’ll cut yourthelf on my collarboneth if you mith!”  
“I’m more worried about getting stabbed by your elbow, to be honest.”

There’s another short, spirited round of laughing and you both sigh, falling back onto the couch. “Tho why _are_ you here?” I ask again, staring up through my blue and red glasses at my gaudy green ceiling, a stray bee or two flying past, a streak of buzzing purple. Aradia shifts, but remains silent. I turn my head slightly and look at her – a mix of emotions dancing across her unreadable face. “AA?” She lets out a heavy sigh and rolls onto her side, looking me straight in the eyes. “Sollux, I have a terrible feeling.”  
I narrowed my eyes, slightly furrowing my eyebrows. _I have a terrible feeling_ , when coming from Aradia, wasn’t just _oh man I think some shit is gonna go down_. When Aradia says she has a terrible feeling, it means, without a doubt, something devastating was about to throw someone’s life into the line of S.S. Shitstorm. The spirits that Aradia communicated with could taste death and disaster, and so by association so did she. Last time she came to me about this feeling the scourge sisters went full throttle and had one of their worst fights yet. I laughed dryly; I wonder who it was going to be this time? With a sigh I shifted a bit closer, twirling one of her dark locks around my finger, watching it spring back into form not matter what torturous shape I forced it into. “It’th ok AA, maybe it won’t be _that_ bad.”  
For a second her face crumbled and my heart must have reached the final boss because that was one fucking powerful combo right there. I winced, letting her hair fall from my grasp. She looked around my face, as if searching it for the words she couldn’t find, until finally she sighed and looked away. “It’s not the same as before, Sollux. The spirits are more restless. I think… I think something bad is going to happen to me.”  
“Oh AA, nothing ith gonna happen to you. I promithe.”  
“Sol, you don’t understand,” her voice was almost pleading, her eyes back to my face, “Something is going to happen. Something terrible, and not just one thing. There’s a chain of events coming and I don’t know how to stop it.”Aradia’s voice broke on the last few words, her eyes swimming with clear red tears. My heart had put up a good fight, but it hadn’t used the double combo fast enough – the ultimate move was made. Total KO.

Without thinking, I pulled Aradia close, tangling my pencil like fingers in the thick knots of her hair. I felt her body quiver with her quiet sobs, her small hands balled into fists on my shirt and it felt unconditionally natural. I clucked and shh’d and patted her like an annoying cluckbeast, taking in her musky scent and her heat. My stomach was knotting, it felt like the flutterbeasts in my stomach were having a glitter party and fuck that shit was getting _everywhere_. I’d never felt this way before. This stirring, spiralling feeling that melted down to the tips of my fingers – this strong urge to serve and protect this crying, lowblooded mess of a girl. I felt something stronger than that so called disease called friendship. I felt… pale.  
I sighed, soaking the feeling up greedily. Yes, I was pale – paler than the moon that was beating at us through the red and blue scribbled window frame. I took in one last, deep breath of her hair before speaking softly. “AA, I promithe you, ok? I promithe you right now. I will not let anything happen to you. I’ll protect you.” She sniffled and I felt her nod against my chest, soft and unsure. “No one will fucking touch a hair on your damn head.” I continued. She laughed sadly, pulling herself closer to my chest. For a minute or two there was only silence and Aradia’s dry sniffles. It wasn’t an awkward, empty silence – it felt full. It felt like everything between AA and I had come together at once, the pieces finally falling into place. Once she had composed herself, she looked up at me with those big, doe like eyes –still red from crying. “AA,” I began hesitantly. She cocked her head, eyebrows furrowed in question. I bit my lip, feeling the flutterbeasts getting their fucking dubstep on. It was now or never.  
“AA I’m so pale for you. I’m fucking ghotht white for you.”  
For what seemed like eternity, she stared up at me, eyes wide and mouth opened. _Oh my god she looked like an idiot_. Killing the nervous smile that was about to grace my lips, I waited patiently and awkwardly for her to respond.  
Then she started crying again.

“Woah AA, I’m thorry! Don’t cry!”  
“Why are you sorry?! Oh gosh, Sollux, you’re an idiot!” She threw her arms around me, pressing her cheek into my neck.  
“Pale for you too.” She mumbled, heat radiating off her.  
Ok wow I just made a girl blush.  
Ok shit.  
Wait a second.  
Holy shit.  
In the words of Troll Gwen Stephanie – back it up, back it up.  
Ok you’ve got it.  
Now just hold it, keep yourself together.  
“Does thith mean we’re… moirailth?” I asked slowly. I have to take this one step at a time before I burst out of my body and cover the whole place in my messy twisted feelings two folds.  
She nodded softly, her hair tickling my face.  
That was it.  
I had a moirail.  
Now there was no way in hell I was letting anything happen to her, cross my heart and swear to die and die I would if she so needed me to.  
This was it.  
We were making this happen.


	2. Alarm Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Today has never happened, and it doesn't frighten me._

I was never totally comfortable with Aradia playing with the highbloods. Especially highbloods like Vriska. I knew how violent and whimsical they could be. I knew I was just as dangerous, with my blaring psiionics and massive bipolar disorder but that just made me a dick – not a murderous, blood thirsty killer. Despite my protesting feelings, I let her play – if Tavros was ok while playing, what was wrong with Aradia? They were only two rungs apart on the hemospectrum, and Aradia had gotten into twice as much danger as Tavros since the kid only left his house to play imagination land in his backyard. I’d seen Aradia jump down into pit traps, seen her wrestle with snakes and dodge giant bolders chasing her down corridors of ancient temples. I’ve seen her whip a wild beast into submission with little more than a scratch. She was strong, but I still didn’t like the idea of her part in Team Scourge. She’d laughed at me, swatting my comments away lightly. “Sol, if I can steal treasures from ancient, booby trapped temples, what’s so dangerous about flarping with a few friends?”  
I shrugged and agreed there was really nothing wrong. I was probably over reacting.  
I knew now what I would have answered her with.  
What was so dangerous about flarping with the scourge sisters?  
 _Everything._

It was the middle of the week, the moons just coming up over the tops of the other hive complexes when there was a sudden hysterical banging at my door. For a split second I looked up from my husktop coding, irritation clouding my expression. “For the latht time man, no you CANNOT uthe my fucking toilet jutht becauthe your fucking luthuth fell athleep on yourth!” I snapped angrily, turning back and typing away furiously on my keyboard. “Sol!” Came a choked, strangled voice that did not sound anything like my neighbouring asshole. Heart skipping a beat, I pushed out from the desk and the next thing I know I’m throwing the front door open in a panic, no clue how I got through my hive so quickly. “Aradia!” I snapped, pulling her instantly into my arms the moment my eyes met hers. “Sol! Sol, it’s happening – the chain—“ She cut off suddenly, choking slightly on her sobs. Panic tightened my throat and I pulled her away from me, looking over her face with intense fury. “What happened? Are you hurt?!” She shook her head as I pawed her red tears from her colour-drained face. “What happened? You have to tell me AA!” There was an authoritative clearing of throat, and suddenly I realised Aradia wasn’t alone. Behind her stood Terezi, face solemn and arms folded. Her black lips were drawn tight, her forehead scrunched into rows of worry lines. “TZ?”  
“Sollux, we need your help.”  
Aradia moved in my arms, looking up at my face. “Sol, it’s Tavros!” Her face crumpled and she quickly ducked her head back into hiding, her warm tears beginning to seep through to my cold skin. “What the fuck do you mean?”  
Terezi’s tight lips curled down at the corners, her face drawn taut over her sharp features.  
“Tavros has been MIA since our last FLARP session. Vriska has been dropping handfuls of vague hints, and by collecting the evidence available I’ve come to the conclusion that she has enacted a terrible crime against our dear brown blooded pupa.”  
I blinked, letting this sink in. “Tavroth ith dead.” I breathed, tightening my arms around Aradia.  
Terezi shook her head wearily and bit her lip. “Sollux, we don’t know for sure. We’ll have more of a chance of finding him with your psiionics, and more chance of moving him safely if he’s...” She swallowed, squeezing her eyes closed. It was unnerving to see Terezi so strung out. I shivered to think just what kind of hints Vriska had been throwing into the bowl, or worse, what she actually did to the poor kid. With a sigh, I pulled Aradia away and stood her up straight. “Let’th go.” I said, squeezing her shoulders with a small, encouraging smile. “I’m thure we’ll find him.” Her expression didn’t improve, but her tears began to dry. She linked her hand with min and leaned against my shoulder. Switching my attention to Terezi, I narrowed my eyes scowled. “Let’th go, we’re loothing time.”

Tavros' hive was on a barren cliff face, dark plains of dry grass covering the land for miles, until meeting with the forest skirting the horizon in the distance. His house lights were on, his lancing station untouched for days. No one was home. Even his lusus had gone. From the clothes that were thrown across his bed, his usual grey pants and black symbolled shirt, we managed to deduce that whatever had happened to Tavros had happened during their Flarping – when Tavros took to prancing around in an imitation Pupa Pan outfit Kanaya had made him. Terezi was instantly suspicious, her face contorted into a mix of excitement for the mystery and anger at Vriska’s action. She began searching through his belongs and ended up making her way through the hive, too absorbed in her search for clues and the chance of 1NV3ST1G4T1ON to pay much mind to keeping company. I felt useless whilst these two rummaged around determinedly. I’d never been here before, so I had no idea what to look at. Not to mention the crushing weight of my extreme pessimism had made me almost 100% certain something catastrophic had happened on these cliffs and the only thing we’d find was a corpse. That was of course until I hear the faint, approaching flapping of fragile wings. “Tinkerbull!” Terezi exclaimed with a grin as the little creature came fluttering into the room, frantic, panicking and flaring his nostrils. “Tinkerbull, where’s Tav?” I heard Aradia press, reaching up to pat the tangled mess the lusus had managed to make of his fur. Tink snorted again and zipped out the door. We followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is short and shit but im building up to it ok


	3. Where is the line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I want to be flexible, I want to go out of my way for you - but enough is enough. Where is the line with you?_

I heard the rasping breaths before I saw the body.  
We moved quickly down the rocky ledges that made their way down to the beach, the white, erratic back of Tinkerbull to guide us in the dark. The waves crashed, angry and menacing and dangerous. Tavros' body laid in between the rocky wall and the screaming water. Brown blood seeped into soft sand from small wounds made on his flesh, cuts and gashes inflicted by the few jagged rocks that had broken his fall, hidden under the sand – a deadly, natural trap. Something was undoubtable more than broken. I could tell immediately by the twisted shape of his legs, the way his hips seemed to lay on their side whilst his torso remained on its back. His legs were shattered, some bones breaking through the skin and revealing ghastly, slowly infecting wounds. Tavros remained still, eyes half open but not seeing as he took trialling breath after trialling breath, rasping desperately through the white film and bile that lined his lips and trickled from his gaping mouth. It looked like he’d been here for days. It was obvious he now only had hours. Beside me, a long, low hiss escaped Terezi’s mouth – her lips pulled back over her sharp, shark like teeth. Anger rippled through her sinewy muscles, clenching and unclenching as she took in the dying form in front of her. She was trying desperately to supress the rage, channelling it and adding it to the ever grown black grudge she shared with Vriska, her rival – her scourge sister. Aradia, braver than us both by far, ran ahead and fell beside Tavros, touching his face and trying to gauge his condition whilst I struggled to keep my lunch in my bilesack. I could feel it burning at the back of my throat, just waiting for my eyes to meet with one more seeping wound so it could escape and spray itself out across the sand before me, adding yellow to the brown stains on the dark blue sand. Clenching my eyes closed and squeezing my restless hands into fists, I walked stiffly to where Aradia kneeled. “What do we do?” I asked. My voice sounded hollow, even to myself, and I couldn’t help but notice the shaky edge to it. Aradia’s face was hard with determination and she jumped to her feet, eyes still strained on Tavros. “I need you to use your psiionics and well as gently as you can – we have to get him back to his hive and get him treated before it’s too late.” I nodded and she stepped out of my way.  
As I lifted him off the sand in a blaze of red and blue, I saw the fist-sized rock lodged into his lower back and I realised bitterly it didn’t matter if we got him back in time.  
Tavros wasn’t coming out of this in one piece.  
Or maybe at all. 

Terezi didn’t stay. As soon as Tavros was back in his hive, she stormed off gnashing her teeth and almost reeling from the criminal charges swimming through her brain. I heard her mutter something about JUST1C3, but I didn’t care. Terezi had her business with Vriska, I had mine with Aradia. She insited on waiting with him until the medic drones arrived, making it her solemn duty to keep Tavros breathing evenly and his broken body as comfortable as possible. My duty was simple; I sat on the floor, Tinkerbull curled up tiredly in my lap. I was the official Lusus soother. Tink was huffing and snorting and fretting, he didn’t know what to do, because there was nothing he _could_ do. Whilst he mulled over the situation with growning gloom, I took to brushing the thick knots of salt and grime that had built up in his bright white fur. He’d stayed with Tavros the whole time he had laid at the foot of the cliff, doing what he could to sooth his charge. The brushing seemed to relax him, and it relaxed me too. Now that the shock had worn off, my usual splitting headache came at me like a fucking rage beast. Flashes of red and blue escaped my eyes like rogue electrical sparks, exploding as my temper spiked and fell over and over. My gut was a twisted mess as it flipped between sinking sadness and a wrenching, hollowing rage that left me unknowingly tensed, baring my teeth and a deep growl echoing around in my empty ribcage.  
The medic drones arrived and we were excused.

I stayed at Aradia’s that night, it was close and it was comforting. It smelt like dirt and earth and her Lusus was the gentlest of all I’d encountered, all fur and smiles and horns – just like Aradia. We slipped into the abolution trap together. Without her clothes on, I felt myself pale even further. She was skinny, all ribs and joints and utterly exposed. She seemed so fragile in this state, a naked, tiny pale body against the large, thick black mane of her hair, whose volume seemed to make her frame twice as small, if that was indeed possible. The water was warm and relaxing. The soapy smells and scented lotions crawled up my nose and relieved me almost entirely of the raging headache that had built up all day. I felt the coils of my previous bipolar episode slip from my muscles and I came to rest in an entirely peaceful state of being. Aradia, however, only seemed to grow more and more strung out. “AA?” I prompted halfway through ringing shampoo through her menacing bushel of hair. She didn’t reply or turn to show me her face and so I had no idea what to expect of her emotional state. I continued with my chore, rinsing the bubbles from her locks and pushing them back from her face. She refused me an answer, so with an angry sigh I took her chin in my spindle like digits and turned her head myself. I was greeted by a face so savage and raw that I found myself recoil with a shudder. She was snarling, her lips bloody and ravaged by her snapping teeth and her eyes, dark slits, clouded with prickling tears. My shock must have shown, because without a second glance she ripped her head from my grasp and half shrieked, her small hands pulling stubbornly at the roots of her hair. “How DARE she!” She cried, balling in on herself and staring daggers at the abolution bubbles. “How DARE that disgusting excuse for a living being--!” She broke off with a scream, her fist flying out and smashing into the wall with a crack of tiles and knuckles. I gasped and grabbed her wrists, trying to keep her contained – to keep her from damaging herself in this vicious attack of anger. I cursed under my breath, looking over her hand. Tiny cuts covered the knuckles, small red bruises already blooming across her grey skin. She slumped back, sinking further into the water, her head falling to rest on my bony shoulder.  
“What do I do?” She whispered quietly, face blank and staring. I leaned in, placing my lips softly on her forehead and stroking her face tenderly.  
“You make her pay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will proof read later I gotta blow this joint holla


	4. Sod off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Darling this is far too pure and perfect, I won't let you corrupt it. Sod off, I won't let you ruin this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter laughs rolls off a cliff

I look back at it now and I know it wasn’t the greatest thing to say. There are thousands of different words I could have thrown out of my mouth, but my own anger was pulling at my heart. Make her pay. I can still feel the repercussions of those words reverberating inside my skull like angry, honeyless bees. Aradia should have known – Vriska’s actions did not start the chain. The incident with Tavros could have been a contained incident, the series of events to follow made null and void. I was the next link. I was the chain that brought her into the spiraling mess she foretold all those nights ago when we first paled for each other and held each other close. Make her pay. The link, the stain on my soul. The words that dragged Aradia into hell and straight into the grasping hands of revenge. Revenge, when enacted, does not stop. There are people to avenge the people you killed, and people to avenge you after your death. The domino effect keeps growing like a malignant cancer. I knew this well. I’d played enough RPGs. 

I hadn’t expected the reaction Aradia threw at me over Tavros’ accident. He was recovering well, but with every visit and every glance at the boy in his wheelchair, the same flame of anger burned in her eyes and twisted her features into darkness. She was possessed, in more ways than one. Sometimes she spoke, harsh and violent and suffered from fits of rage that, when she recovered from, she did not remember. She was possessed by spirits, thriving, angry, blood thirsty spirits. Spirits that wanted one blood – Blue. I slept over a lot, keeping her safe from herself. In the middle of the night she would suddenly scream in fury, then fall back into peaceful slumber. It was tearing her apart, and I knew there was nothing I could do. The only thing that could help her was acting on those feelings. So I supported her plan. It was going to be nothing as harmful as what Vriska did to Tavros for Aradia was nothing if not docile. She didn’t believe in a life for a life, but like Terezi she did believe in appropriate punishment, though her commitment to the application of law wasn’t as strong. Aradia’s plan was to simply scare Vriska, to send the spirits of all the trolls she’d killed over the years to haunt and accuse her. Aradia seemed optimistic that the confrontation would lead to a swell of remorse in the spider bitch. Too bad that’s what she is, a spider bitch. A cold, blue blooded killer. She would never regret, and she would never change.

It seemed perfectly sound, just a little kick to the head to remind Vriska that just because Tavros didn’t die, it didn’t mean she wasn’t guilty. I hadn’t expected her reaction. I was beginning to think maybe girl’s functioned on a totally different level to me and that their actions would forever be an unyielding mystery.

I hadn’t counted on being used.  
I didn’t see myself as a usable fraction of the equation.  
I’d underestimated how fucked up that girl was.


	5. Desired Constellation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s slippery when your sense of justice murmurs underneath and is asking you, how am I going to make this right?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha ha ha ha sighs :')

The day started as usual. I woke up to the shrilling cry of the alarm, calling me from the crackling blue and red lightning of my dreams. I reached out one thin, boney arm from the sopor slime and began the routine button smashing in an attempt to get it to shut up. An attempt rewarded only with a clock flying across the room and a new hole in the green plastered walls, creating a great black, gaping hole in the middle of a long string of code. Sighing, I pulled myself up and over the edge of the blue half of the pod and onto the cold ground, dripping splotches of slime across the tiles and fumbling my crocked frame into a white robe. After a wash down and a mouthful of honeyed toast for breakfast I sat down at the messy clutter of my desk and booted up the computer. It sprung to life with a soft rumble and a string of humming, the bees waking up slowly from their hive combs and getting their little purple bodies to work. They buzzed at me grudgingly, not yet fully awake. “Yeah, yeah, I hear you.” I mumbled groggily under my breath. As the screen loaded I stared dumbly into space, absently picking my nose, inspecting the found gold on my fingertip, and then inserting it into my mouth in a continuous cycle I never realise I’ve fallen into until someone points it out. My icon pops up on the screen. Clumsily I typed _2hiithiive_ into the password box, mashing the enter button and sighing. The computer chimes happily as it accepts the information and fades to the desktop, a clusterfuck of icons, coding programs and a wallpaper of fading numbers and symbols. Trollian pops up automatically and rather annoyingly. I scowl through the available contacts, only three names online at this ungodly time. Just as my eyes touched briefly on the cerulean handle, the program bings and the name comes to life in a fitful flashing of orange. Begrudingly, I open it. 

**AG:** _Don’t struggle too much! ;;;;)_

A sudden pang struck my head. With a scream I toppled forward, head smashing soundly onto the hard desk – my hands flying up to pull at the roots of my hair, as if by some miracle I might be able to pull the pain out strand by strand. The pain grew and grew until a welcomed, sudden numbing sensation began to flow through my muscles. I tried to reach for the emergency glass of water and panadol that sat just centimeters away but it was no use, my arm wouldn’t move. At least, it wouldn’t move for me. My body began to move on its own, pushing out on the rolling chair and moving to its feet in one fluid movement. With two strong strides I was across the room, looking down at the buzzing, angry purple bees – my hand reaching out, taking a fistful of the dripping, sticky mess. The hand moved to my mouth, sweet gold exploding over my tongue. Everything disappeared into darkness.

It felt like fire.  
Burning, searing, terrifying fire.  
It licked at my limbs, clawed at my eyes and closed my throat.  
I struggled uselessly in the choking black swamp of unconsciousness, red and blue crackling on the horizon, magnificent strikes of lightning reduced to sparks in the distance. I tried to swim towards them, but to no avail. The swampy black water did nothing to soothe the burning, to ease the bright light that was growing and stinging at my eyelids. I choked, spluttered and struggled but I didn’t stop moving. I put my head down and swam for my life.  
Decades seemed to pass.  
When I reached the shore, my body spasmed and came to life.

My eyelids shot open and with the quick flash of the bright, deadly light I snapped them shut again – white spots dancing on the red-black backs of my eyelids. Panic began to crawl up from my stomach. It was day time and I was outside. What the hell happened?  
My curse catching in my parched throat, I began to drag my burning, stinging body over the grass and towards the tree line, well, I hoped I was. I hadn’t had a good look at my surroundings after the almost blinding confrontation with the huge ball of burning gas that was the Alternian sun. However, what I did see seemed familiar. I trusted my body’s instincts to stay alive over my own judgment until, finally, the sweet bliss of shade encompassed my shaking frame. Taking in a deep breath of the cool air, I opened my eye a slither. Assured that the sun wasn’t ready for another full frontal attack, I peeled the raw lids of skin back over my eyes and blinked the fluttering static out of my vision. I suddenly became aware of three things at once; Firstly, that my head throbbed with the force of a thousand green suns, secondly, my skin was blistered, raw, bleeding and smelt like cooked meat and Thirdly, I realised with a sinking feeling that I knew exactly where I was.  
And where something definitely wasn’t.

In the middle of the clearing, where the sun shone brightest, where during the light of the moon I had spent numerous hours playing and joking, where Aradia’s hive once stood, was nothing but a pile of grey and red rubble, the air around it shimmering with the heat reflecting off the chunks of concrete. The scene screamed complete and total devastation. The scene screamed me.  
Retching violently, a trail of bile made its way onto the grass, my stomach releasing the last of the liquid my body had contained. The pounding migraine in my head screamed at me in rabid fury – _What have you done_ \- I couldn’t scream back, all that had been left inside of me was now colouring the ground. My mouth burnt of sick laced with a strange, familiar taste I couldn’t place. Forcing myself to move, I crawled closer to the rubble but staying safely within the confines of the shade. I circled around the left side of the mass. Colour caught my eyes as I passed just where the front door had once been, dark clotted patches on smooth grey. It wasn’t black. No, it was Dark red. Darker than the red that had made the glass, a dried liquid that crusted over all it covered in a large, dark pool.  
The world became a blur, my head spinning and my body shaking. Images flashed before my eyes and with the heart stabbing pain of realisation I recognised the second taste present in my mouth.  
Mind honey.  
The head ache put its foot on the pedal. It writhed, thrashing and screaming – screaming over and over and over.  
 _What have you done what have you done what have you done what have you done_  
I collapsed onto the grass, mouth gaping open like a fish out of water as the sobs began to grow in power inside my rib cage. I convulsed, clawing, scratching and digging at the earth, driving my burnt corpse of a body into the soil mindlessly, as if the earth would open up and take me in and I could lie, happy and untouched in a welcoming grave.  
 _What have you done_  
I pushed myself back into the dark swamp.


End file.
